ArticleAmerican journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council2025
Avoiding "Too Tall" and "Too Short": The Effect of the Community on the Regulation of Body Height.
Article in American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Multilevel Effects of Socioeconomic Factors on the Somatic Status of Contemporary Youth Across Russian Regions.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2026Article
- Secular Trend and Socioeconomic Variation in Body Height of Young Polish Men Between 1965 and 2023.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2026Article
- Political Liberation, Hope, and Social Competition Are the Motor of Secular Trends in Height.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundRecent evidence emphasizes the role of social signaling in the regulation of human growth.
aimTo disentangle the influence of physical living conditions such as wealth, health, nutrition, and education from influences that are transmitted among members of the social group. We consider the spectrum of all historically possible heights ("transgenerational growth potential") and disentangle the influence of the physical living conditions from influences that are transmitted among members of the same social group. We ask (1) what is the magnitude of the "transgenerational growth potential"? and (2) to what extent narrows this potential upon entering a specific historic community? SAMPLES AND
methodsWe report on the height of more than 14 million German conscripts and recruits born between 1865 and 1975.
resultsBetween the late 19th and the late 20th centuries, mean male height increased from 165.8 cm (SD 6.5 cm) to 180.1 cm (SD 7.0 cm). The skewness of the height distribution was always close to zero. Height was statistically associated with living conditions, but the association disappeared when linking characteristics of the within population distribution of height with the disparity of living conditions and economic inequality. Mean height of the social community is a strong attractor of individual height and reduces the "transgenerational growth potential" by more than 50%.
conclusionStrong effects of the social community outweigh the effect of individual living conditions and substantially narrow the transgenerational growth potential, to protect against being "too tall" or "too short" within the social community.
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